In Iran’s January Crackdown, 221 Children Were Murdered

This past January, Iranians protested against the regime in 200 cities across the country. About 40,000 protesters were killed in two days, January 8 and 9, and among those killed were 221 children. While Israel is constantly maligned for nonexistent “crimes against humanity,” the real “crimes against humanity” in the Middle East have been carried out by the regime in Iran. More on the latest findings about child victims in Iran can be found here.

At least 221 children were killed during Iran’s nationwide protests that began in late December 2025, according to findings presented by the United Nations Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Iran. The figure includes children as young as four months old.

Viviana Krsticevic, expert member of the Iran Fact-Finding Mission, said on October 28, “The Government of Iran has itself published a list of over three thousand 3,000 names of persons killed. However, we have reasons to believe the actual numbers are likely significantly higher. The dead recorded by us include at least 221 children, the youngest 4 months old.”

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The actual figure is 40,000 people killed — many of them protesters, others simple bystanders.

The protests began on December 28 over economic grievances, then expanded into demands for political change and spread across all 31 provinces and more than 200 cities. The Islamic regime in Iran responded with lethal force, mass killings and arrests, and a digital blackout.

The UN mission’s September report described a significant escalation in arrests and executions. It said security forces killed protesters and bystanders, including children, using live ammunition against people who posed no imminent threat. Killings were particularly high in Tehran, Karaj, Mashhad, Isfahan and Rasht.

Further details in the mission’s documentation reveal the scale of the deaths among young victims. Its records include six children under the age of 10, while two victims were only two years old.

“We saw security forces shooting at the bystanders and young individuals; we tried to help those who fell, but they blocked access to the wounded,” said Arman, a protester from the January protests….

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The security forces — mainly Basiji members — could have stuck to massive volleys of tear gas to control the crowds, but chose instead to abandon the tear gas for live fire on January 8, and for two days they kept up what has been called the “protest massacre.” They sometimes took aim at their human targets, but more often simply shot into crowds, killing men, women, and children, both protesters and bystanders, at random. 40,000 people died.

There were also many thousands of wounded protesters across the country, including some who required amputations.

Iranian authorities have released a list naming more than 3,000 people killed, but human rights organizations have documented more than 6,000 deaths, while Iran International reported more than 36,500 people [40,000 is the latest figure released] were killed during the crackdown on January 8 and 9, citing classified government documents and other sources. The figures remain difficult to independently verify due to the authorities’ internet blackout and restrictions on access to information….

The figure given by the Iranian government — 3,000 killed — is less than 10,000 of the actual number. The Iranian government long ago took to heart that hadith of Muhammad in which he said that “war is deception.”

The repression has continued long after streets were cleared. Iranian regime has intensified their use of death penalty against protesters, with Human Rights Watch reporting that at least 29 people arrested in connection with the December 2025-January 2026 protests were executed between March and the end of August 2026. Dozens more remained at risk of execution, including women and young detainees. Reports of expedited trials, coerced confessions and no access to legal representation have raised further concerns about the treatment of those detained.

The UN has a Special Rapporteur For Conditions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” Why has the West not demanded the appointment by the UN of a “Special Rapporteur for Conditions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” where mass killings, executions, and torture have taken place this year at a scale far beyond that of the previous 47 years? Why has no one raised at the International Criminal Court the “war crimes” being committed by the Iranian regime against its own people? Or is the world’s outrage going to continue to be focused on one small country, whose name we all know?